Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane story by Peter Bagge

THE LIFE STORY OF THE FEMINIST FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT

Peter Bagge returns with a biography of another fascinating twentieth-century trailblazer—the writer, feminist, war correspondent, and libertarian Rose Wilder Lane. Following the popularity and critical acclaim of Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story and Fire!! The Zora Neale Hurston Story, Credo: The Rose Wilder Lane Story is a fast-paced, charming, informative look at the brilliant Lane. Among other achievements, she was a founder of the American libertarian movement and a champion of her mother, Laura Ingalls Wilder, in bringing the classic Little House on the Prairie series to the American public.

Much like Sanger and Hurston, Lane was an advocate for women’s rights who led by example, challenging norms in her personal and professional life. Anti-government and anti-marriage, Lane didn’t think that gender should hold anyone back from experiencing all the world had to offer. Though less well-known today, in her lifetime she was one of the highest-paid female writers in America and a political and literary luminary, friends with Herbert Hoover, Dorothy Thompson, Sinclair Lewis, and Ayn Rand, to name a few.

Bagge’s portrait of Lane is heartfelt and affectionate, probing into the personal roots of her rugged individualism. Credo is a deeply researched dive into a historical figure whose contributions to American society are all around us, from the books we read to the politics we debate.

Praise for Credo

Credo’s pages burst with Rose Wilder Lane’s outsize personality. She was an early anti-communist and individualist. Today as Americans continue fighting over how big government ought to be, Lane’s legacy persists. Peter Bagge sensitively—sometimes hilariously—portrays Lane’s brilliance but also geekiness, kindness but also needy devotion to friends, and loyalty but also codependence with Laura Ingalls Wilder as the mother-daughter team that plotted the Little House books. The end notes are almost as fun to read as the comics!

Christine Woodside, author of Libertarians on the Prairie: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Rose Wilder Lane, and the Making of the Little House Books